After a strong showing at the October 2017 International Stars College Showcase in Phoenix, Arizona, 19-year-old catcher Giulio Monello, from Novara, Italy has signed a national letter of intent, receiving an athletic scholarship to begin his college baseball career at Odessa Junior College in Odessa, Texas. Giulio is the first 2017 Showcase participant to sign and the thirteenth player in the International Stars program from Europe to sign with a U.S. college in the past four years.

We would like to congratulate Giulio and wish him the best of luck as he begins his college baseball career next Fall in Texas!

After a successful showing in October at the 2017 International Stars College Showcase in Phoenix, Arizona, Italian catcher Cesare Astorri, who also played for the Future Stars at Prague Baseball Week 2017, has signed with the Oakland A’s organization.

The 19-year-old from Parma, Italy came to the U.S. looking for an opportunity to play college baseball. His impressive performance at the well-attended Showcase day caught the attention of Major League scouts in attendance. This led to a private workout with Oakland and Cesare was offered a professional contract that became official last week.

Cesare will report to Arizona this Spring to begin his journey to the big leagues – and the entire International Stars family would like to wish him the best of luck!

Cesare hitting a home-run for the Future Stars at Prague Baseball Week 2017

Since then, Max’s journey has taken an unexpected and unique turn after he helped pitch the 3n2 International Stars to their fourth Prague Baseball Week Championship title in five years on July 1st. After throwing a complete game shutout with 14 strikeouts vs. the Czech National Team and earning the pitcher of the tournament award, he signed a free-agent contract with the Baltimore Orioles organization, and went from pitching and hitting in the Czech Extra-League for Skokani Olomouc to pitching in Baltimore’s organization for the remainder of the season.

The 24-year old from Encinitas, California was in the middle of his summer break with Olomouc at the Prague airport bound for Paris when the Orioles called and told him to head to Sarasota, Florida to begin his second attempt at affiliated professional baseball in the U.S. After not pitching in a game for over a month, Max picked up where he left off and in 2 outings for the Orioles Gulf Coast League (Rookie Level) team he dominated opposing batters in 5 innings, striking out 9, allowing just 1 hit and no walks, and earning himself a promotion to Class-A Delmarva Shorebirds. In his next two outings (both starts) for Delmarva, Max threw 9 innings, struck out 4 batters, allowing no walks and just 3 earned runs. Across two minor league levels for the Orioles in 2017 Max concluded the season with a won-loss record of 1-1 and pitched 18 innings with a strikeout to walk ratio of 13:2 and an E.R.A. of 3.50.

This is Max’s second time playing affiliated baseball in the U.S. having started his career with the San Diego Padres organization in 2014 after playing collegiality at the University of San Diego. After being released by the Padres, Max took his game overseas where his stops included the MacArthur Orioles in New South Wales, Australia and the Senart Templiers in the top French league. Max started the 2017 season pitching for the Adelaide Bite in the Australian Baseball League and playing for East Torrens in the South Australia state league competition before heading to Europe to play for Skokani Olomouc in the Czech Republic and then finally, concluding the season with Delmarva in the U.S.

MacNabb pitching for Delmarva Shorebirds in August 2017

We had a chance to catch-up with Max during the off-season at his home north of San Diego and asked him about his amazing journey in 2017 and what he has in store for 2018. Read the interview below….